


[Translation] Remains of the Sun

by lysanding



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Intersex Character, M/M, Other, Power Imbalance, translator's tags:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:08:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysanding/pseuds/lysanding
Summary: Soonyoung, first son, beloved of their father, died on a rainy day.Wonwoo, the second, weak and frail, face the ones he left behind.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Xu Ming Hao | The8, Kim Mingyu/Xu Ming Hao | The8, Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30





	[Translation] Remains of the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [流阳](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26403823) by [electronicsunray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/electronicsunray/pseuds/electronicsunray). 



> Please check the tags before reading. I personally would classify this as dubious consent but the warning was from the author and I will respect it. I added the underage warning.
> 
> This is a work of imagination that does not represent real people.

Kwon Soonyoung died on a rainy day.

The day he was born was memorable for being unusually sunny, but when he died it was damp and bleak, chest trampled to pulp by a horse in frenzy. His entire body sunk into the drenched mud.

By luck, his face survived unblemished, wiped clean of even any trace of his final, fearful expression. When he was carried home, his mother’s tears fell like the rain.

The remains of the heir can not have the same treatment as a commoner’s corpse, chopped into pieces and thrown to the wolves and vultures. Kwon Soonyoung’s final cradle was a wooden coffin. The undertaker will chisel a hole in the perennially frozen lake, then let Kwon Soonyoung slowly sink down to the bottom.

Within the town, the villagers sought someone to blame, finally pointing the finger at Kim Mingyu, the servant that took Soonyoung horse-riding that day. Mingyu was dragged forward, violently trembling as he knelt on the floor. In his entire life, Jeon Wonwoo had never seen a man cry so pathetically.

“Master Soonyoung is dead, should you not also die with him?”

Mingyu bowed his head, each tear dropping one by one onto his hand, and each hand was bound tightly by so much rope that even a rabid dog could not break free. His curled-up body resembled a tiny insect. Wonwoo drew his hand from the inside of his warm clothes, and from a distance, placed his fingers on top of Mingyu’s head. With a light pinch, Mingyu could be dead. He was an inferior person.

“Answer me. Are you deaf and mute?”

Mingyu raised his head, scanning the people sitting upon the dais until his eyes fell on Wonwoo, his entire body draped in thick leopard fur, his face white as snow.

“I don’t want to die,” Mingyu begged. He dropped his head onto the floor, the sound banging so loudly that even Wonwoo heard. The knocking sound reminded him of another, of that day when when Kwon Soonyoung was nailed into his coffin.

Wonwoo had a frail body ever since he was born. The priest said he could not make it to a decade, his mother treated him like glass, and Wonwoo himself struggled to stay alive to this day. But healthy, strong, Soonyoung, the eldest, his father most beloved, had died even earlier than his weak, sickly, broken brother.

“Father, give him to me,” Wonwoo whispered, turning to glance at Mingyu. Both of his hands and feet were tied with rope, but he twisted his body like a struggling fish, shuffling by Wonwoo’s feet. Against the top of Wonwoo’s shoe, he placed his face.

“Mingyu, do you know why I let you live?” Wonwoo asked.

“Master is benevolent,” Mingyu’s throat squeezed out a whimper. It grated on Wonwoo’s nerves.

The answer made Wonwoo laugh until he had to cough. The white fog of his exhale clouded his face from view.

“Incorrect. Mingyu, a person like you is not even good enough to be buried alive with Soonyoung. I let you live because alive, your existence can be further degraded to a status even lower than burial objects. Understand?”

Mingyu’s eyes widened, unable to say a word.

“Still want to live?” Wonwoo asked.

Mingyu nodded.

“Pathetic,” Wonwoo sneered, then with his leg, he struck Mingyu’s waist. But he was so weak that the kick barely had any force. Mingyu felt it all the same, like a searing-hot iron branding itself into his side.

Wonwoo did not have his father’s family name, rather, he followed his mother’s. But although Jeon and Kwon came from the same House, Kwon was their father’s family name. Soonyoung was the name chosen by their father, and Soonyoung was the only child he named. The name _Wonwoo_ was picked by his mother, hoping to _Woo_ — bless him with a life that was _Won_ \-- complete. But his mother wasn’t an exemplary kind of person, she was always cursing Soonyoung to die an early death. It was only after Soonyoung was interred in a coffin that Wonwoo realised. Any of his mother’s blessing on himself had to simultaneously be a curse on Soonyoung.

Wonwoo loved Soonyoung, who was like a child born from the sun. If Soonyoung had lived, then perhaps Wonwoo, and maybe even Wonwoo’s mother, could have found happiness.

Following Soonyoung’s death, some nights Wonwoo would startle awake in a cold sweat, his ears ringing with the sound of nails hammering into a coffin. When he was aware of himself again, he saw Mingyu on the floor beside his bed, lying like a dog. Every time, Wonwoo heard his heady, heavy breaths, each sound somehow able to smother Wonwoo with the exuberance of his shameful vitality. He would kick Mingyu awake, forcing him from sleep. Mingyu would wake up, open his sleepy eyes and look at Wonwoo placidly.

“Come up, sleep here and hold my feet,” Wonwoo ordered.

Mingyu was very obedient. He climbed onto the bed and curled up at the end, hugging Wonwoo’s frozen feet against his chest. Wonwoo pressed his feet against the heat of his stomach, then moved lower, stepping on the organ between his legs. He pushed against it with a light force and Mingyu made a sound resembling a puppy, but he never resisted. He always docilely held Wonwoo’s feet, and Wonwoo was always disgusted by his easy deference. He forcefully stepped until he felt Mingyu become erect. Then he stopped.

“I forbid you from touching yourself. If you do I will kill you,” Wonwoo hissed, his expression as terrifying as sharpened knives. Mingyu’s eyes widened in the dark and his cock jerked and quivered. But Wonwoo’s words were law, to touch himself was to die. As an inferior person, it was easier to die than to stay alive. But Mingyu was determined not to die. Even if all four of his limbs were amputated and he was thrown out to be kicked from person to person, he would still refuse to choose death. Where this stubborn, burning desire to live came from, Mingyu himself did not know.

* * *

Soonyoung liked the person who was raised deep inside the village. He gave it the name _Minghao_ , a nice name with an auspicious meaning. But Minghao didn’t know how to read or write, so Soonyoung took his hand and wrote the characters in his palm, stroke by stroke. His fingertips were warm and Minghao’s dumbly followed the trajectory of his fingers until he felt like his own palm had transformed into the soil of the earth, and Soonyoung’s fingers were like soft animals trotting on top.

Soonyoung taught him so much, and the fact Minghao could even speak was thanks to Soonyoung since there was no reason to teach the sacrifice how to talk. It only needed to live up until a certain day, and then given over to god.

“It is a blessing to be consecrated for god,” Soonyoung told him.

“Does Soonyoung also want to meet god?”

Soonyoung nodded, “Yep. One day I will go. Minghao even if you’re alone, don’t be afraid,” Soonyoung squeezed his hand, “Don’t feel lonely, because I definitely will come and look for you.”

“When will Soonyoung look for me?” Minghao tightly held Soonyoung’s hand, “Is Soonyoung lying?”

“No, no. Trust me,” Soonyoung grinned.

In the end, he wasn’t sure who it was that told him. Soonyoung is dead. His body crushed and broken. Minghao buried himself in the dim depths of the village, imagining Soonyoung all by himself, imagining the moment he was lowered into that icy hole. He burst into tears. Soonyoung used to tell him, at the bottom of the lake were houses, and they could go there to live a happy life.

Minghao said, “But I’m happy now. To be by Soonyoung’s side is happiness.”

 _Is that so_ , Soonyoung had laughed, _but I am a selfish person._

* * *

Jeon Wonwoo went to meet the town’s designated sacrifice, Minghao. When Soonyoung was still alive, he always went to visit the place where Minghao was kept, staying the whole day.

“Did he fuck you?” Wonwoo asked.

Minghao looked at Wonwoo as if beholding a monster. But he smiled and said, “Strange. You were brothers, but why is there not a single point of resemblance?”

Expressing neither anger nor annoyance, Wonwoo commented, “If the same thing goes in, will the things that come out also be the same? His mother is a good vessel, perhaps my mother is not, and gave birth to an inferior product like myself.”

Minghao watched him silently, and Wonwoo asked him again, “The thing that you have down there, you let him fuck it right?”

Minghao flashed a bleak smile, “What do you mean?”

“I know many of the town’s secrets,” Wonwoo was getting tired standing up, so he signalled Mingyu to come over and kneel. Forcing Mingyu to bend over, Wonwoo sat himself on his back. He opened his mouth, languorously shaping every word, “I know that your nether regions hold not only a man’s shaft, but also a woman’s cave. The priest required that you were to be raised until you were fourteen years old, then offered to god.”

“But Kwon Soonyoung was too headstrong,” Wonwoo put on an aggrieved tone, “He didn’t want you to die, wanted you to live even longer. So you were kept alive to this day.

Minghao was watching the expression in Wonwoo’s eyes and in them, a wound flashed open.

“He had already been stained by the dirty thing on your body,” Wonwoo spoke, “Black marks had already started on his flesh. He himself does not know, but I can see it clearly. Sunspots has started to mar the sun, and it was about to fall.”

“But originally,” Wonwoo enunciated each word, “You were the one supposed to die.”

Minghao looked at the floor, unable to say a word.

Wonwoo gave him a once-over, looked at his lithe frame and the delicate exposed shoulder, the skin so white that it seemed to have been dusted with a thin layer of ash. He looked at Minghao and felt like he was seeing himself. Would god accept weak and sickly bodies like theirs? Soonyoung was strong and healthy, and god taken back a person like him.

“You haven’t answered me.”

“… Soonyoung knew I was a sacrifice, so he would never do anything like that.” Minghao looked at Mingyu kneeling in the dirt, then as if foreseeing what was to come, he took a few steps back.

“Great,” Wonwoo stood up, patting Mingyu’s head, “Mingyu. Go.”

Mingyu recoiled, looking up at Wonwoo anxiously, “But master, he is meant to be the sacrifice…”

Wonwoo coldly replied, “I am very well aware,” he turned to Minghao, “You’ve seen Mingyu before right? He used to be Soonyoung’s pet dog.”

“You seek to anger the gods,” Minghao looked at Mingyu, who was approaching, one step at a time. He knew there was nowhere for him to hide.

“Then will the gods punish me? Like they punished Soonyoung?” Wonwoo pretended to think, “I will not let you die. I will make you unworthy of seeing god, unworthy of seeing Soonyoung.” He flashed his teeth, as white as his skin, lips curled back in a stark smile, “Minghao, you will join me in hell.”

Mingyu was such an obedient dog. Every night he slept by Wonwoo’s feet and the smell from his sex made Wonwoo gag. It was the stink of his arousal, his excitement tangible enough to be felt. It was the same now, the air was thick with it, heady with odour as Mingyu pressed Minghao under the weight of his body. At the moment they were enjoined, Minghao resembled a broken-winged, slender-limbed insect, body completely broken open and intertwined with Mingyu’s. Their skin was melded together, and even their fluids mixed as one. For a while, Wonwoo just watched in silence, but then he approached the tight tangle of bodies. Squatting down, he brushed the sweat off Minghao’s forehead.

Minghao was panting, and in his eyes was the reflection of Wonwoo’s face. Minghao studied him for a moment.

“Strange,” he said, “Now I see the resemblance.”

Wonwoo was stunned for a second, then he laughed.

* * *

A long time ago, their father was exactly like Soonyoung. He always used to visit the place where the sacrifice was kept, and when he went he would stay the whole day. Wonwoo’s body was weak, so his mother forbid him from running around the forest like Soonyoung. So secretly, he snuck out during reading time and circled around the village.

When he found that place, Wonwoo saw his father moving as if possessed, his flushed naked body on top of the sacrifice, his torso jerking like their household’s dogs, his head lowered and panting loudly next to the sacrifice’s face.

Wonwoo crouched on the side and watched, and noticed that the sacrifice’s lower body had both a man and a woman’s organs. He was fourteen when he got to know a woman for the first time. The maidservant who looked after him was helping him wash, and touched him there. Her hand was covered with suet, her fingers warm and soft as she carefully took care of him. She guided his hands to her chest, and they came together.

The incident was discovered by his mother and she had the maidservant stripped and thrown out of the village. She also detained Wonwoo in the house for a long time. But then she lost her mind and became hysterical, almost wounding Soonyoung. Father ordered her to be chopped into pieces then thrown into the forest. Wonwoo had asked after his mother, but his father just said, “She’s in the forest, you won’t be able to find her.” Wonwoo knew then, that his mother was an inferior person and the inferior people can not die with dignity. When Soonyoung died, Wonwoo’s heart was filled with grief, but it also brimmed with jealousy. Soonyoung was a child of the sun and when he died, he would not become a pile of meat like Wonwoo’s mother, to be fed to mutts and bitches and mauled until the bones were clean. Soonyoung would pass away and go to god’s side, complete, perfect, and chaste.

Then the sacrifice became pregnant with his father’s child, and the priest ordered the child to be brought to term and birthed. When the child was born, the sacrifice was offered to god and the offspring, Minghao, became the new sacrifice. When he grew up, god will summon him too, and thus the town will prosper and the villagers will experience fortune.

Not long after Soonyoung’s death, father fell ill. But before he died, he called Wonwoo to his chambers and ordered him to promptly sacrifice Minghao so that the village can be peaceful again.

Father even said, ‘If only Soonyoung was still alive everything would be fine. If Soonyoung lived, then there would still be hope …’

But in the end it was Soonyoung’s headstrong selfishness that came back to bite him.

Father was as thin as a skeleton, and he reached out a hand towards Wonwoo. Father was about to die, and Wonwoo felt the nauseating scent of death emanating from every crevice. His father’s eyes, his nose, his ears, his mouth. Wonwoo covered his nose and retreated, recoiling from his touch.

So his father started cursing, cursed Wonwoo, cursed his mother. Said his mother was a disgrace, and he was also disgrace. Said that it was a great serendipity that the township fell into his hands like this, but for the town it was a great disaster.

Wonwoo did not say a word, but he looked down on his father then, as a pathetic and pitiful thing. He had committed a sin, and Soonyoung did too. If his father did not act like a dog and defiled the sacrifice’s flesh, if Soonyoung let Minghao die at the age of fourteen, maybe everything would have been different.

When his father’s coffin had also sunk into the ice, the village suddenly became deathly silent. Jeon Wonwoo slept by himself in a huge, empty room. In his dreams he saw the maidservant, his mother, and their bright naked bodies dancing in the forest. He saw Soonyoung riding astride a high horse, his smile dazzling and resplendent. At nightfall, he would come to Wonwoo’s room carrying the prey he had caught that day. They would converse for a long time, about his ambitions, his desires, and about their father. Wonwoo also saw his father, his flushed naked body and the sacrifice tangling together before melting into a single cold coffin. His ears rang with the sound of hammering nails. In the coffin was his father, Soonyoung, and the pieces of his mother and the maidservant.

* * *

it was still dark when Minghao awoke and found himself sleeping in Mingyu’s arms. Mingyu hugged him tightly as if to keep him warm and Minghao let out a breath. He placed his hands around Mingyu’s neck, felt his veins pulsing violently with life under his skin, in the cradle of his palms. Could he really kill Mingyu? Minghao thought about it, withdrew his hands and curled up again in Mingyu’s embrace.

Before, Soonyoung had treated Mingyu kindly. When Soonyoung came to visit, Mingyu always followed closely by his side. When Minghao looked at Mingyu, he could not help but feel disbelief. How could someone be so strong, so handsome, but yet completely lack self-respect? Mingyu was close to Minghao because of Soonyoung. Because Soonyoung liked Minghao, Mingyu also liked Minghao. But if Soonyoung ordered him to strangle Minghao to death, he will definitely comply. Without Soonyoung Mingyu was nothing. Minghao leaned against Mingyu’s chest and listened to the steady beating of his heart. Really, apart from staying alive, there was nothing else Mingyu could do.

Mingyu’s come was still inside him, but bizarrely, Minghao felt at peace to know that this terrifying and exuberant existence could plant a seed inside his body. But he was a sacrifice, and in a few days he would die.

When Soonyoung was still alive, Minghao imagined himself being held countless times. He really really liked Soonyoung, liked him so much that even if Soonyoung just bumped him, Minghao would get wet. Soonyoung had let him live, hoping that he could experience life as a human, even if just for a little while. But how did Soonyoung never realise? In Minghao’s head, he was always fantasizing, thinking about something obscene. When he saw Soonyoung, he would dream. Someone had told Minghao that he was the child of the previous sacrifice and Soonyoung’s father was his father also. He found out, and felt a weighted kind of delight. As if he had become closer to Soonyoung in some way.

After Soonyoung died, Minghao did not want to die as a sacrifice because wherever Soonyoung was, he definitely cannot go. If he can not meet Soonyoung after death, his death would be meaningless.

But what did he have to live for? Minghao clutched Mingyu’s warm body and felt so hopeless.

In the second half of the night, Wonwoo came looking for them, once again wrapped in that heavy leopard fur, his thin body hazily appearing out of the fog. Minghao half-opened his eyes, saw his figure, and thought he was looking at Soonyoung.

The village was silent, _no one is awake yet_ , Wonwoo said, _lets go, we’re leaving_. Mingyu blurted, _to where?_ But Wonwoo did not reply. Upon Mingyu’s neck he encased an iron ring with a chain that he gripped in his hand. Mingyu bowed his head and did not resist.

Wonwoo looked at Minghao, “I’m taking you to see Soonyoung.”

They walked a long way from the village, Minghao glanced back and saw a faint flame flickering from the top of the stockade, black smoke drifting high.

“They will all die,” Minghao whispered.

“Mm,” Wonwoo did not look back. “No one is awake yet and the fire is quiet. Will someone who is asleep realise that they have died? I have done enough for them.”

“Where are we going?” Minghao asked.

“Don’t you want to see Soonyoung?”

Wonwoo lead them to the edge of the frozen lake. The surface of the lake was capped all year round with a thick layer of ice. Wonwoo walked onto its surface.

“Soonyoung is here,” he said to Minghao.

Minghao walked to Wonwoo’s side. He fell to his knees, pressing his hands against the ice until his palms burned with pain, then became numb. From below the ice flowed a kind of illusory warmth. Minghao felt a sliver of comfort.

“Soonyoung once told me, under the lake is a village where people live. People can survive there living in eternal bliss and happiness.”

“Do you believe it?” Wonwoo asked.

Minghao laughed, “I did, but now I don’t.”

“Well enough, because if you said yes, I would have gotten Mingyu to cut a hole here and thrown you in.” Wonwoo patted Mingyu on the back. Mingyu had no reaction, looking at Minghao with clear and placid eyes.

Wonwoo tugged at the chain in his hand and continued walking forwards. The lake was so massive it was impossible to see the other shore. Mingyu obediently followed behind Wonwoo, turning around to look at Minghao and beckoned him to follow.

Minghao laid on the ice and whispered, “Good bye, Soonyoung.”

Then he ran up to Mingyu and Wonwoo. They will cross the expanse of the lake. Where they will end up, Minghao did not ask, Mingyu did not ask. Minghao walked behind them to look at Wonwoo from the back. He was thinking. Half of the blood in his body was the same that flowed in Soonyoung’s. The same half flowed in his own body. So between the two of them it was as if Soonyoung remained alive, half in Wonwoo and half in himself. Minghao cheered up, and grabbed Mingyu’s hand. Mingyu squeezed him tightly. The chain from the iron ring around his neck clattered against the ground. Wonwoo was in front of them, gliding as quietly as a ghost. Minghao felt like that iron chain pierced through their bodies and was tethered to their spines. He felt a wave of vertigo. He was a sacrifice, but yet he shamefully lived on. Shamefully they will live on, the three of them, forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Translator's note:  
> Thank you for reading! If you like this please leave kudos on the original work.
> 
> I chose to translate this because the story fascinated me. We are placed in a town with history, full of personal secrets and old traditions that remain obscure. Each character was forged by their relationship to Soonyoung, and his loss transformed them. Even the words were so carefully crafted it was a lesson in storytelling for myself as well.
> 
> I've written a [commentary on the story and translation decisions](https://lysanding.dreamwidth.org/674.html). Please feel free to talk to me about it either here or there. I have enabled anonymous commenting but let me know if anyone would like me to open a cc!


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